Apple share drops with arrival of Napster and Sony Walkman
March 10th, 2005 Leave a comment Visited 56 times, 1 so far today
Apple share drops with arrival of Napster and Sony Walkman
Has the time come for Apple to take the competition seriously? Microsoft was one of the first one to declare a war with their PlayForSure initiative. Creative also stated that they would be targeting Apple iPod aggressively with their new products. However, it seems Sony is the company who has got the most tools in their arsenal to take Apple heads on in the market, which was once the domain of their Walkman range of music players.
Sony decided sometime back that they have had enough of this Apple nonsense and they would start a full-fledged marketing war to get back their place in the digital music entertainment market. They left their strategy of promoting their own proprietary format Altrac3 and open their arms to MP3 format. We then saw the launch of the MP3 supported Sony Walkman Music Players. Recently they collaborated with Eriksson to release the first Walkman branded mobile phone. Now we have flash memory powered low costing Walkman music player.
The war is now officially on between Apple and Sony. Apple has its cool image while Sony has the heritage. Apple has got cool products; Sony has got functionality rich products. Apple iPod is limited to Apple iTunes; Sony is open to a large number of music stores. We have to see for how long people buy their products based on their heart instead of their mind. That could decide who rules the Internet digital music market in the coming times.
The results might have already started to become apparent. Apple Computer Inc. shares dropped Tuesday after Sony declared their latest line of digital music products. In addition, Napster as a digital music subscription service (TO GO) has been promoting itself quite aggressively and taking some sheen away from Apple iTunes. Apple has had a great time on the share market in the recent times with investors showing great faith in it.
The shares of Apple have tumbled around 6 percent this week alone with 8.5 percent drop since they announced a share split on Feb. 11. Last year, apple touched an all time high of $81.99 from a price of $23 at the beginning of the year.
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March 10th, 2005 at 4:17 am
>>We have to see for how long people buy their products based on their heart instead of their mind. <<
And which one is their music closer too? A little churning in the stock market doesn’t bode much.
March 10th, 2005 at 4:21 am
>>We have to see for how long people buy their products based on their heart instead of their mind.<< And which one is their music closer to? A little churning in the stock market doesn’t bode much.